Lanzavecchia + Wai animates Milan with intriguing furniture and installations

Milan Design Week 2023, set in motion from April 18 to 23, 2023, lures design enthusiasts from across the globe, concentrating diverse creative communities and connoisseurs in the bustling city of Milan. A significant and immensely anticipated week in the annual design calendar, the design festival is not just a platform for designers to showcase their novelties, but also a forum for the amplification of extant ideas and new ideas. Singapore and Italy-based industrial design consultancy Lanzavecchia + Wai comes on board with a series of fresh product designs that will make appearances in several events across the event—all reiterating their ethos that being designers means being researchers, engineers, craftsmen, and storytellers.

From unveiling new furniture and lighting designs for brands such as Zanaotta, Penta and FIAM, for THE pARTy - VELENI at Spring Studios and Superdesign Show’s Stars of Today section, the studio unpacks a great deal in the midst of the creative commotion. Tracing their exuberant presence in Milan Design Week, STIR enlists new collections and initiatives crafted by Lanzavecchia + Wai.

Gems for Penta

Gems, a family of lamp designs conceived by Francesca Lanzavecchia for Penta, is an alluring interplay of colours and transparencies that yield delicate iridescence and varying glows. The lighting system comprises six elements that come together to create the final lighting design: three lampshades of increasing diameters fitted on an incandescent body. Although the configurations can be endless, the designers have curated nine predefined options while also allowing the leeway for customisation. Lanzavecchia + Wai worked in partnership with Penta to breathe life into a new palette of borosilicate for lamps that can elevate any space as stand-alone pendants or when clustered together.

Shift for FIAM

During the design fair, Lanzavecchia + Wai also introduces the Shift collection, an ensemble of mirrors that refuse to fit into rigid frame geometries. Employing non-Euclidean geometries, these glass creations for FIAM—both rigorous and dynamic, compact and elastic—seem as if they emerge from the unfinished material. The collection features a set of plastic and single-material accessories generated from the viscous paste of the glass. The dynamism between the classic mirrored surface and the firmness of the smoked glass renders a rhythm to the composition, balanced by an opposing tension that anchors it firmly in the frame, dramatised by vertical grooves. Celebrating FIAM's expertise in glass fusing techniques, the designers bring to life new expressions of glass with unique decorative three-dimensional patterns—an amalgamation of industrial precision combined with craftsmanship.

Trussardi Casa 2023 Collection

The new Trussardi Casa collection that makes an appearance at the design week is a juxtaposition of art and design that caters to contemporary and cosmopolitan homes. Pertaining to the vast collection of furniture design are three products designed by Lanzavecchia: Nebula, Choco and Bangkok. The furniture designer has expanded the Nebula collection with compositions of soft lines, tradition, irony and playfulness. The bed, stool designs and the high and low versions of the armchair experiment with contrasting fabrics and adorn a space akin to small-scale architectural pieces. While the Nebula armchair is evocative of the puffiness of a cloud, the Choco side tables reminisce the way of life in Japanese culture. The Bangkok lamp provides a similar glimpse of the Far East.

Design wears Fashion

Design wears Fashion, a special project by Trussardi Casa for Milan Design Week, showcases the Nebula armchairs designed by Lanzavecchia, but with a twist. The chairs have been reinterpreted as part of the project and are displayed in a special installation at Palazzo Trussardi. Design wears Fashion is a creative juxtaposition of diverse yet connected spheres—design and fashion—through a simultaneous exploration of their respective creative processes, techniques and material studies. The armchair ‘wears’ Trussardi in four special editions. The first armchair with a low backrest is donned in a dramatic knit cape, recalling Trussardi’s Fall-Winter 2022 collection. The second version with the high backrest is draped with beige-tones satin with a ruching technique. The last two editions are achieved using the same base, a hybrid of the first two—one finished in black leather with a chrysalis shape, and the other dresses in croc-embossed woven jacquard.

Colomychus Chernobilis for NODUS

The Colomychus Chernobilis carpet is Lanzavecchia + Wai’s homage to the land agonised by the first nuclear disaster, Ukraine, withstanding a tormenting war in recent times. This design in collaboration with NODUS comes 10 years after the presentation of the first rug design of their Mutations 1.0 collection. To bring the designs to fruition, the designers envision themselves as entomologists in the Radioactive Red Forest, investigating the genetic mutations of its inhabitants. “Inspired by the poetic scientific illustrations by Cornelia Hesse-Honegger, we have imagined for NODUS the Mutazioni (Mutations) carpets, which present the top-down view, like in an entomologist case, of real insects with imaginary mutations due to the radiations: the Amaurodes Chernobilis, the Tacua Fukushima, latest mutated insect, the Colomychus Chernobilis moth,” says Lanzavecchia.

THE pARTy - VELENI at Spring Studios

The intriguing glass objects in this project aim to instil awareness on themes related to consciousness of our environment and bridge the physical and digital realms. VELENI is a project brought to life by creative duo Lanzavecchia + Wai in collaboration with Particle, a team that fosters culture, art, design and creativity through real and virtual experiences. The project presents several possibilities to the visitors and collectors: physical, with an ensemble of 12 glass objects crafted by Murano glassblowers; virtual, through augmented reality developed by Particle; and digital, through multi-thematic guides. VELENI debuts at Milan Design Week with a rebellious drinking experience at THE pARTy - VELENI at Spring Studios—becoming the protagonist in this event teeming with cocktails, discourses, and digital interactions.

Nena Lounge for Zanotta

Embodying comfort and quirky proportions, Nena Lounge is the latest addition to the Nena family by Zanotta, a pioneer of Italian industrial design since its inception. The silhouette of the chair design conforms to its dining chair and stool counterparts. The soft foam volumes of the armrest and seat pillow are equalised by the elegant metal frame that supports them. The excessive size of the elements in comparison to the slender metallic components culminates in a dynamic tension that lends energy to the furniture piece. The Nena Lounge seamlessly fits into an array of residential and commercial settings—a meticulously crafted piece that makes a bold statement while presenting a comforting embrace.

STIR’s coverage of Milan Design Week 2023 showcases the best exhibitions, studios, designers, installations, brands, and special projects to look out for. Explore Euroluce 2023 and all the design districts—5Vie Art and Design, Brera Design District, Fuorisalone, Isola Design District, Tortona District, and Milano Design District—with us.